3 Health Dangers of the 7 Day Diet

The 7 day diet offers those dieters unwilling to make long term lifestyle changes for their health a quick and easy fix for immediate weight loss. The 7 day diet goes by many different names: the cabbage soup diet, the GM diet, the Sacred Heart diet, the all you can eat diet and many others, but the details are often the same. Each day of the diet restricts you to a certain food or foods, but you can often eat as much as you like of it. However, this diet is just a fad diet that has been circulating around the Internet for years, preying on the desperate who are seeking a quick fix. This diet is unhealthy and dangerous. Here are a few of the health risks associated with the 7 day diet.

Health Risk #1: Damage to Your Metabolism

The 7 day diet works by restricting the number of calories you eat each day, often times to a dangerously low level that puts your body in starvation mode. When your body is in starvation mode, it lowers your metabolism so that you no longer burn as many calories from the food you eat and more of it is stored as fat. While you may actually lose weight on the 7 day diet, once off the diet, you will likely gain all the weight back. However, your metabolism suffers from the diet, and you are likely to gain even more weight than before in addition to having a harder time getting it off.

Health Risk #2: Loss of Muscle Mass

Another health risk of your body going into starvation mode is that it will do anything it can to lower the amount of calories it needs to operate. Your muscles burn extra calories even when not in use, so the body will first begin by burning off those muscles to save those extra calories. After the 7 day diet, you will be weaker than you were before hand, making it harder to exercise, which is a core component in healthy weight loss.

Health Risk #3: Malnutrition and Deficiencies

The 7 day diet is insidious because when you look at the diet plan, it shows that you get lots of fruits and vegetables. You may think “what’s wrong with that.” However, the danger in the 7 day diet is that it does not recommend a balanced diet that gives you all the vitamins and nutrients your body needs to be healthy. Not only are you going to be getting less calories than your body needs, but you may suffer from vitamin deficiencies that can lead to pretty serious health conditions down the road!

Diets such as the 7 day diet offer quick fixes to a problem that has no easy answers. The secret to long term health is a balanced diet in addition to proper amounts of activity and exercise. Any diet which proposes quick weight loss for little effort should always be looked at closely. Always talk to your doctor or a nutritionist before beginning any diet. They can help you develop a diet built around your body type and metabolism. Let the 7 day diet and other fad diets fade away.

About 3FC

3FC began as a personal source of diet support for sisters Suzanne, Jennifer, and Amy in 1997. The site has grown considerably based on the feedback of the many visitors and sister chicks that found us and decided to call the website home.

The website was acquired by Internet Brands in 2010 and continues to provide the most supportive free weight loss community online!